Do Child Themes Change the Parent or Are They Independent? (5 posts)

I just added a child theme for the first time and I am confused. I was under the assumption that the CSS in the child theme makes it a totally independent theme, but one that takes on the CSS of the parent theme for any CSS that is overwritten.

Instead, whenever I add new CSS to the child theme, it overwrites the CSS in the parent.

SO in essence, only the child theme css loads. BUT, most of the time we use the @import line which calls to the parent themes css file

If you didn't have that in there, only the style.css of the child would load, you would need to have ALL of the css rules in your child theme to look good

But, we normally use the @import line for ease of customization. What that does is load the parent themes css first, and then you put in any customization you want in your child theme. The child theme css loads after the parent theme - so anything you put into the child theme overrules what is in the parent. That way we can modify the theme!

functions.php is the only file that loads automatically for the parent and child

You don't need one in your child theme, but if you have one, special care must be taken to use it properly.

http://vudu.me/3jq
Here's a tutorial I have about modifying 2012 theme. It has a few examples of modifying a theme using a child theme, specifically using style.css and functions.phphttp://vudu.me/child and here are some more tidbits